


Sand

by stephanericher



Series: Fins [5]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 18:38:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: Even a foot below her, he’s still nearly at eye level, and it still stabs like a split fingernail. It’s been years since she could tuck him under her arm like his cup of soda, years since she’s needed to protect him or teach him.





	Sand

**Author's Note:**

> takes place after 'salt'
> 
> mentioned garciraki/kagahimu, not enough to warrant the tag but fyi

Humans seem to spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about the sea, describing it in songs and poetry, the light dancing off the peaks and valleys of the waves late in the afternoon as if that’s all there is to look at, as if the waves could be half a foot deep and full of nothing for all they care. Maybe it’s because Alex is used to seeing the surface from the underside (and thus is incapable of conceiving that there is nothing underneath), but she’s not too proud to say that humans do have a point with all that. The surface is gorgeous, what she can see through the glare off her glasses, the surf jagged and shining like the inside of a shark’s jaw colored through a prism. Beside her, Taiga shifts, sand crunching between the soles of his feet and the worn leather of his flip-flops; she reaches over her hand and he sticks out the greasy fast food bag.

(She’ll give humans credit where it’s due for inventing French fries, too, dripping with oil and coated in grains of iodized salt that break under her teeth, the aftertaste washed away by the watered-down soda from a styrofoam cup.)

Taiga tucks his soda into the crook of his elbow and takes off his shoes, stuffing them into his back pockets. He straightens up and hops off the boardwalk onto the sand. Even a foot below her, he’s still nearly at eye level, and it still stabs like a split fingernail. It’s been years since she could tuck him under her arm like his cup of soda, years since she’s needed to protect him or teach him. He offers his hand, and Alex doesn’t need it but accepts it anyway, stepping onto the hot dry sand.

The soles of her feet are hardening; they never have before. She’d scuffed them up a little as a kid, walking wobbly and trailing behind various half-human cousins on sand and board and asphalt, always to return to the sea days later. As an adult, she’s never spent as much time on land until now, never been this acquainted with the peculiarities of a human body, the things she’s not used to feeling or needing. The sand is rough, pressing heat into Alex’s soles, making her feet slip and sink. Taiga slows his gait to keep back with her, but he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the feeling on his feet.

The sand cools as they head toward the water; beachgoers have left their umbrellas standing in the sun with patches of shade beneath, lengthened by the sharpening angle of the sun. Alex jerks her head toward one striped pink and white, a second before she realizes the pattern reminds her of Masako’s ice cream stand.

The two of them sit at the front edge of the shade, leaning back on their hands, the bag between them. Alex leans to the side, rubbing at an itch on her cheek with her shoulder.

“Your boobs are falling out,” says Taiga.

Alex looks down. “Who’s going to see ‘em, you?”

Taiga rolls his eyes. Alex pulls up the straps of her tank top; they’ll fall down again before she gets up, and probably after she drops a french fry down between her boobs.

“Do you really hate clothes that much?”

Alex shrugs. "Not really. They’re annoying, but. Eh.”

She flexes her feet, digging it in the sand, meeting more resistance than she’s comfortable with still. It’s hard and dry, even when it’s damp; it’s still unfamiliar, but she’s not letting it become less so. She thinks this every time.

“Dad’s not coming up. Not soon, anyway,” says Taiga.

He slurps on his soda and stares out at the water, squinting in the light. He’s known this for a while, but the way he’d said the words says he’s held out on confirming it, saying it aloud to someone else.

“Like, I know he loves me and supports me, and I’m okay, but.”

Alex leans forward. “But?”

“I’m staying.”

Alex smiles.

“I have a job and a life here. I have Tatsuya, and you.”

Simple but it twists Alex’s insides. He has Tatsuya; they’re not fighting; there’s a prospect of a Taiga-and-Tatsuya, at the edge of the horizon like a distant barge, just a blur in the light right now but very much there.

“If you’re staying?” Taiga adds.

Alex nods. It’s not something she needs to think about too much to answer, but maybe she’s a little like Taiga. Maybe it doesn’t seem real until she talks about it, and there hasn’t been an opening she could take advantage of to vocalize it before this.

“Yeah, I’m staying. I have a part-time job; I have Masako. And you and Tatsuya.”

(Maybe he'll say he doesn’t need her—a little more likely to come from Tatsuya, perhaps, but a need to formally release her from a role she’d never formally entered, an acknowledgement that she can’t teach them all that much anymore, provide them with anything. Unmooring her if she needs to go, but even if she doesn’t.)

“I’m glad,” says Taiga.

He leans over to hug her; maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising. Maybe she’s stuck on the image of both of them as kids more than she’ll let on. She squeezes Taiga back; even if she’ll give him enough credit, she’ll still let being wanted feel pretty gratifying. As he pulls back, she ruffles his hair; Taiga wrinkles his nose.

“I’ll be here as long as you want me. Even after that.”

He bumps her shoulder.

“Really, really?”

“Well,” says Alex. “I’d like to go back every now and then. Find some way to take Masako home with me, or bring some of that to her, if I can.”

She frowns; saying that confirms it, too, and that kind of thought isn’t something that can be solved easily, the bridge between humans and merfolk that only goes so far, the lanes in one direction cut off abruptly. That’s not what she had meant to bring up, but it’s coupled with her staying, digging her feet deeper into the rough sand of Masako’s world, filling up the room Masako gives her like water filling an empty bottle.

“Do you feel like—like you should?”

“I want to,” says Alex. “I’m living in her apartment, and we could go to her hometown on a train anytime, but I can’t just drag her underwater, you know?”

Her mouth twists into a smile; Taiga leans forward but he looks a little worried.

“I’m not thinking about it all the time,” says Alex. “But it would be nice.”

“Have you thought about scuba gear?” says Taiga.

He’s being serious; what a good kid. It’s not a terrible idea, anyway; it’s more than she’s had on her own.

The light is falling behind the city buildings on the other side of the boardwalk. The shadows are merging into the rest of the sand, the fries are cold and soggy in Alex’s hand. She pops them into her mouth anyway; they’re actually not too bad this way.


End file.
